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Migrating

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by ramuvr

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I am using Windows XP Professional SP2 at home. But of late I am having frequent system crashes. I am planning to migrate to Vista, my works being minimal (IE/Word/picture/Music/Games) I plan to purchase a Windows Vista Home basic edition. But I am not ready to spend too much money on this, so my plan is to use Open Office instead of MS Office. I found out that Vista Home Basic costs just around Rs.3800 Indian Rupees. So if I move to open/free softwares I believe I can save a lot of cash on other requirements.

My primary concern is my already existing documents and excel sheets which are in some cases .docx format. Any idea about Vista supporting Open Office and if yes, will it support docx format? Also what sort of antivirus will save my ass...

Also I need suggesions on this whole migrating thing.

6 replies

by the listed 'g man'

Docx suggested you are using Office 2007. So why not just install you copy of office 2007 on the new machine when you get it (assumed removal from old machine).

by ramuvr

I cannot do it. Mine was not having a proper lisence and I don't want to run my new Vista on pirated softwares either. Well, I just don't want the Office 2007 at all.. All we use is Word and Excel, and we have to spend so much for the pack.

by nicknielsen

OpenOffice will [u]not[/u] open M$' OfficeXML files. Given that you want to ditch M$ Office, save your docx/xlsx files in Office 2000/2003 format before you transfer them.

OpenOffice will have no problem opening and working with most M$Office files from M$Office 2003 and earlier. Most simple macros should work; you will have to convert complex macros from VBScript to OOoBASIC. There will probably be formatting issues, minor in most cases.

There is also, of course, the learning curve as users discover that OpenOffice is not exactly like M$ Office. For example, OpenOffice puts the Format Page option under Format, not File. The traditional shortcut keys all work ([b]Ctrl-B[/b], [i]Ctrl-I[/i], etc.). You can even configure OpenOffice to save in M$ formats as the default.

I have been using it now for almost eight years and find that in most cases, for me, OpenOffice is probably better than M$ Office.

Edit: runaway [i]italics[/i]

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